A Day Of 'Last Letters, Fresh Tears' -- And Fun

SUFFOLK — LOCAL: On a day for heroes who never came home, patriotism is mixed with sorrow and pleasure.

Patriotism and pleasure.

There were plenty of both as people throughout Hampton Roads took to cemeteries, monuments, malls, fishing piers, boats and beaches Monday to commemorate the nation's 137th Memorial Day.

A massive picnic-table-size grill sizzled all day long at American Legion Post 67 in Hampton, where chefs took turns roasting fish, ribs and burgers to help fill out plates covered with baked beans and cornbread.

Outside the post, Earl Pierce's flattop betrayed his military pedigree, but his blue apron was the uniform of the day. Pierce started cooking barbecue ribs on Saturday, and the Vietnam veteran was up at 5:30 a.m. Monday to make sure that the post's cookout was stocked with juicy slabs of meat.

"If I had to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning to do it, I'd be up at 3 o'clock in the morning, no doubt," said Pierce, who worked on navigation systems in the Air Force. "I put in 20-plus years, and I loved every minute of it."

Honoring the fallen should be more than a once a year event, he said, especially in Hampton Roads where liberally scattered military bases makes fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan even more wrenching.

"It's coming close to home," Pierce said. "It really takes a toll on this community ... and the state and the whole country really."

That's the nature of war and sacrifice, Del. S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, told the 100 or so people attending Monday morning ceremonies at Suffolk's downtown Cedar Hill Cemetery.

There were plenty of reminders growing up in the small village of Chuckatuck in north Suffolk.

His family doctor had been wounded in World War II. So had his Little League coach. "My best friend's father had been wounded in the war," said Jones, "but you never heard that, because they served their country."

Survivors didn't need to boast, said World War II veteran Ray H. Nelms, who stood listening to Jones from a nearby clover-filled lawn.

"We know the real heroes are not here today," he said, raising his brows emphatically and adjusting his brown Veterans of Foreign Wars cap. "The heroes are all over there. We left them there."

Ryland Lamar Walter was one of those left behind.

"He wasn't but 19 years old," said his 86-year-old brother, Rufus, whose thinning gray hair was covered by a brown VFW cap bedecked with patches and commemorative pins. "I'm remembering him and all my buddies, the ones who passed away and didn't make it. That's who this day is for."

Linda Carter went to the first Memorial Day ceremonies held at the Albert G. Horton Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery in Suffolk to remember her late husband, Charles, who is interred there.

"The air we breathe is because of people who served," she said.

She and others wonder how long that will remain the meaning of the day.

"A lot of us have forgotten," she said. "I think we're taking it for granted."

The holiday was just another day on the James River for John Lupyan, who stopped at the gas station in front of Wal-Mart in downtown Suffolk with his family to fuel up a maroon Ford Expedition towing a white Wellcraft motorboat.

"We've been out all weekend," said Lupyan, examining the back end of the boat. "Just came back yesterday and we're heading out again today."

Bolstering the holiday spirit of the day, shoppers flooded area stores to pick up barbecue basics.

"They've been getting grills, patio furniture, charcoal fluid and all of that," said Shironica Beamon, who was lounging in her car on a lunch break from the garden center of Suffolk's downtown Wal-Mart. "They've been getting ready all weekend for their cookouts."

Yet at the Victory Arch in downtown Newport News, William Copeland, just two days removed from his sixth-birthday party, spent part of Monday afternoon being introduced to the original meaning of the day.

Dressed for summer in shorts, tennis shoes and a fresh buzz haircut, the kindergartner quietly watched his father, Bobby, circle the arch looking for the names of high school classmates killed in Vietnam.

The important outdoor lesson, Bobby Copeland said, was best taught at the arch built on the tip of the Peninsula to welcome soldiers home from World War I.

"We do work at trying to explain it to him," Copeland said. "He's a very intelligent boy."

But watching their son bounce around the arch, Copeland and his wife, Ruth, both wondered how much their son really grasps.

"We just wanted to show him around so that he sees the local connection," said Ruth Copeland. "He knows a lot of retired military men, but I don't think that it really sinks in to him what it's all about." *